It’s been exactly one month since I left my corporate lawyer job to become a full-time ghostwriter, consultant, and coach.

During that time I’ve had a ton of successes, mostly because I had built my business on the side very deliberately, to the point that I had a lot of people waiting for my time to free up.

In fact, I was actually almost behind on some writing projects, although my clients were in the loop and accommodating, knowing I was in the midst of a transition that would allow me to serve them better.

As a result, I’ve had a lot of really great successes in the first 30 days, including:

Getting a 3-book deal from a traditional publisher for books to be written in my own name, for my own brands;

Beginning the process and am now up for a Guinness World Record for one of my projects (more details soon);

Landing 3 new coaching clients (only a few left until I hit capacity); and

Landing a new consulting client.

It all adds up to some pretty awesome projected income to get started and projects I believe in.

I’m now writing 6 books at various stages, have several coaching and consulting clients, and have my own brands building in the background (and in some cases, the foreground).

I’m also working less (only slightly though, as the 50 hours from my day gig got quickly eaten up by the writing I am catching up on), sleeping more, and spending more and better-quality time with my family.

Score.

Most people would stop there. I won’t.

A lot of crap happened, too.

Here are a few that come to mind from the past 30 days. Total “unexpected crap” almost $2,000:

Long story short, my wife broke something by total accident that did not belong to us and it cost us about $1,500 to replace.

Our heating system in the house (that’s also connected to our hot water) broke and cost $350 to repair.

One of our garage doors broke. We think we fixed it ourselves. We’ll see….

That’s only the completely unexpected stuff and stuff that can’t be anticipated (like insurance premiums, which we knew about).

I also need to take better care of my personal health for oh so many reasons That started last week.

Overall a great first month.

But don’t believe anyone who tells you it’s all tutus and rollerblades.

I can’t remember a month where I’ve been as happy professionally, literally everything is exciting.

I’m going to share a little bit about the past 12 months. This is the short story about why and how I quite my job as a corporate lawyer to become a full-time ghostwriter and content coach.Just over 1 year ago, I announced that

When you’re done reading, feel free to ask questions in the comments. I’m here to help.

I promised that we would have some fun together. As you know by now, this site is where I go to just chat off the top of my head. I have several other sites, which I have and will share here. But this is my personal journal. This is my “how to,” my “what would I do” blog.

And this is not only what I would do. It’s what I did.

In fact, over the past 12 months, I did a lot, including leave my job as a lawyer.

Am I crazy? Time will tell, but I guess it depends on your perspective.

And by “how I did it” I mean both “how did you change the direction of your marriage” and “how did you write the book.”

When people ask me things like that, I like to help. When a lot of people ask me, the best way to help is to be able to serve multiple people at the same time.

So I started coaching and podcasting, too, mostly informally.

Then a friend of mine shared how she got into ghostwriting. She was a lawyer, like me, and transitioned into full-time ghostwriting.

I was intrigued. I had no idea how to “break in.”

She took me under her wing, shared some secrets and tips, and helped me break my biggest obstacle… the one between my ears.

In August I got my first very small project. Then another came in December. Another came in January. And yet another in February. I was doing very little marketing (after all, I was still working over 50 hours per week as a lawyer), but people liked my writing and connecting with me.

I know how to write books. I write well and I write fast. I write logically, and I can get into my clients’ heads.

As I turned projects around, publishers noticed, and one in particular started sending me manuscripts they liked that had been prepared by people they love.

Their instructions: We want to love both the person and the manuscript. It needs your touch.

One year after releasing my first book I was writing 5 and had already finished projects. I had a publisher tell me they want to see everything I’m working on, and the sales in the first half of 2016 equaled 50% of my salary as a lawyer for the first half of 2016…and this was doing it very part time.

I started building momentum.

Over the following six weeks, I planned and projected, reached out to current and former clients for testimonials and referrals. I went from one source of business to three pretty reliable ones.

I had a wait list. I had vision into the future.

On top of that, I had coaching and consulting projects and testimonials coming in from there too.

It was time for me to leap.

My last day at work was August 12, 2016. In the weeks that followed those extra 50 or so hours filled fast.

I had moved deliberately and had people waiting for me to have more time for their projects.

I started offering one-time Content Kickstarter consulting calls, on top of ongoing content coaching packages, writing partnerships, and full ghostwriting for short- and long-form content.

It took a lot to get to the point where I was comfortable leaving my job as a lawyer. I’ll share all sorts of details in the weeks and months to come.

I’ll share successes and failures. I’ll answer questions.

For now, you’re pretty much up to speed.

My current workload is as follows:

Writing 6 full-length books

Multiple coaching projects

Multiple consulting projects

Building another business

Hosting two podcasts

And I just signed a personal 3-book deal for 3 “pocket guides,” which will be pocket sized, no-fluff books, to be released over the next 18 months or so

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